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Wednesday, May 2, 2012

The Human Stain - Philip Roth

**** Minor Spoilers contained here. I give away the fate of the main characters. I say that this is minor because it is
revealed a little more than halfway through this book anyway. ***

The Human Stain is another Philip
Roth book that I loved. Once again, this
is a story that is part of the Zuckerman series and, like the previous two
entries, Zuckerman mostly narrates and interprets the tale. He is only a character
of moderate importance in this book.

Roth and Zuckerman tell
the story of Coleman Silk. Silk is an
African-American who grows up in New Jersey during the 1930’s and 1940’s. Silk is a strong willed, brilliant student as
well a talented boxer. Encountering only
occasional racism in his very early years, he is shocked by the hardcore ethnic
bigotry that he confronts when he first attends college in Washington D.C. Intending
to live life his way, Coleman, who is very light skinned and possesses many
Caucasian features, simply decides to pass himself off as a white man. After serving in World War II, Silk returns to
civilian life and meets Steena Paulsson, who seems destined to become his wife.
Coleman hides, or at least does not reveal, his ethnicity to Steena for several
years. When he finally surprises her
with a visit to his family, providing her with no foreknowledge that they are
African-American, Steena flees from Silk. After this incident our protagonist cruelly
severs ties with his family and completely takes on the identity of a Jewish-American.

Silk later marries
another white woman and has children, but never reveals to his family his true
past or ethnic background. Professionally
he becomes a Professor of Classic Literature and rises to the position of Dean
of the fictional Athena College. As a dynamic reformer, he puts Athena on the
academic map. Along the way he makes numerous
enemies as he eliminates the dead wood and non-working members of the faculty of
the college.

In his seventies and
upon retirement from the position of Dean, Silk decides to stay around and continue
to teach a few undergraduate courses. In
an ironic twist of fate, one day while taking attendance in class he casually
refers to a couple of students, who have never shown up to class and are just
names on the attendance list, as “Spooks”. It turns out that the students in question are
African-Americans. A firestorm erupts as
Silk is accused of making a racist statement. His friends abandon him as his enemies descend
upon him and he later resigns in fury. Afterward,
he blames the ensuing death of his wife on the scandal.

The heart of the book
concerns itself with events that occur several years after the above events. Silk meets Nathan Zuckerman, whom he implores
to write the story of his persecution. He also begins an affair with Faunia
Farley, a woman less than half his age who has been abused throughout her life
and who is apparently illiterate. Members
of the local community as well as Silk’s children condemn the relationship as
inappropriate. The lovers are hounded by
Lester Farley, who is Fauna’s abusive and psychotic ex-husband, as well as by Professor
Delphine Roux, a self-righteous professor at Athena College. Lester Farley eventually murders both Coleman
and Fauna. I am not really giving anything away, as the events of Coleman’s
death are mentioned relatively early the novel, whose timeline is only
partially linear. Next, Zuckerman
proceeds to piece together the story of Coleman’s life and demise. The last months of Coleman’s life take place
concurrently over the backdrop of the Bill Clinton–Monica Lewinsky scandal,
which is referenced again and again.

The Human Stain is a work of great thematic and philosophic
complexity. Multiple strains of ideas run
concurrently and are intertwined. As is
true of every other Roth novel that I have read, the issue of identity and its
shifting permutations dominate the narrative. The idea of an African-American taking on the
ethnicity of a Jewish-American, and eventually being persecuted for being a racist,
is prime material for these explorations. Since I explored this multi–novel train of thinking
in my commentary on Roth’s “I Married a
Communist”, I will instead focus here on another
related aspect of this novel, what Roth calls the “Ecstasy of Sanctimony”.

Roth takes humanity
to task for our tendency to judge and attack individuals for personal behavior
that is not really the business of the public, is ultimately trivial and
sometimes accompanied by gross mistruths.

As mentioned earlier,
the Clinton sex scandal and subsequent impeachment plays prominently in the words
and thoughts of the book’s characters. Pondering
the events, Zuckerman points to the incongruity of the fanatical piety that
many people were projecting over both Clinton’s and Silk’s liaisons, while
paying minimal attention to a twentieth century world full of suffering, war,
genocide and insane ideologies. Zuckerman
deplores this unsophisticated and small-minded tendency of certain Americans to
obsess over such trivialities and ignore what is truly momentous in the world. He compares such reactions to the Muslim extremists
who supported the Fatwa by calling for the murder of Salmon Rushdie. Roth ties such thinking to a strong anti – intellectualism
and racism prevalent in America. Many of
the characters who express disgust with both Clinton’s and Silk’s sexual activities
accompany the comments with anti–education, racist and anti–Semitic comments.

This is a train of reasoning
that I must admit appeals to me. I am often
appalled by what seems to me the simplistic phony righteousness expressed by
some of my fellow Americans. I remember distinctly
the discussions that I engaged in with self-described pious persons during the
self same scandal. One needs only to
listen to the ridiculous and hateful rhetoric engaged by many of our current
politicians and commentators speaking against access to birth control to
understand what I mean.

Just when you think,
however, that Roth is going to confine his point to the puritanical anti-
intellectual thinking that a segment of America engages in, he throws us a curveball.
He proceeds to aim his sights on the over intellectualized and often politically
correct thinking left wing.

Professor
Delphine Roux is the diametric opposite of the American anti-intellectual. She is a young, attractive, stylish and
sophisticated French woman descended from aristocracy who can be described as a
super intellectual. Educated in the
finest French schools and possessing a brilliant mind, Roux has mastered the
intricacies of complex literary theories that few of her colleagues even
understand. She has awed her peers and
students with her cerebral prowess and engaging charisma. She describes herself as living for books and
for art. At twenty- nine years of age she
rises to become chairperson of the language and literature department at Athena
College.

Roux
is, however, emotionally immature and unstable. She leads a hysterical sanctimonious attack
against Silk, first for the innocent “Spooks” comment and later for what she
incorrectly imagines to be an abusive and misogynic affair. Even after Silk’s death she continues to pile
on the slander. Here, Roth presents us
with self-righteous attacks from a different source altogether. Like the assault on Clinton, real truth
concerning private human weakness, is combined with outrageous lies that
further smear the victim.

Though
Roth clearly despises the excesses epitomized by Roux, from what I know of him,
he is intellectually, socially and politely much closer to the intellectualized
international literary left that is occupied by Roux. To Roth’s credit, he has turned his literary
glare close to home.

Faunia
Farley is the true opposite of the reprehensible people who engage in the
vicious moralizing. She condemns no one.
In one passage, she seems to see that
human imperfection, or “the Human Stain,” as all pervasive and simply accepts
it as part of the world. Later
Zuckerman, writing in Silk’s voice (yes, perception and point of view get
really complicated with Roth!) describes her,

“She's
not religious, she's not sanctimonious, she is not deformed by the fairy tale
of purity, whatever other perversions may have disfigured her. She's not
interested in judging—she's seen too much for all that shit. “

Raped
and abused all of her life, and in the end murdered, for me Faunia Farley is
the noblest and most admirable person in this story.

This
tale made me think about a book that I read a few months ago, Nancy Issenberg’s
Fallen
Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr . This work details the
life of America’s third vice president, who Issenberg contends was the victim
of outrageous lies and character distortions that continue to be perpetuated to
this day. My commentary on that book is here.

My
thoughts here only represent a small fraction of what a reader will get out of
this book. There is so much that I have not even mentioned. Aside from a great story and characters, Roth
weaves a tale that is a thinking person’s delight. Since once again Zuckerman is only
interpreting a story, a reader unfamiliar with the other works in the series
can jump right in. This is a great work, though not quite as great as the incomparable
American Pastoral.

I
have one last Zuckerman book to go. That
is Exit Ghost. I believe that the main narrative returns to
Zuckerman’s life and, I fear sadly, his death. I will get to that one soon and share my
thoughts with everyone.

16 comments:

I have never read Roth, but you have piqued my interest with your insightful comments on this book, so I am going to check it out. There is an Australian writer who identified as an Aboriginal man, but found out his father was actually an African-American GI who visited Australia during World War II. There was a huge debate (one of many in an ongoing debate) about race and identity when the newspapers got hold of his story. He still publishes under his Aboriginal name, because he had identified as Aboriginal all his life, I guess. Identity is such an interesting and difficult subject.

Thanks Violet. That is an interesting story and it would be great fodder for Roth to fictionalize!

Roth really digs deep and is a little obsessed with the identity issue in all the books that I have read thus far. Though as far as I know this is the only one where he tackles race, he explores ethnicity (among European and Middle Eastern groups), religion, political affiliation, class, etc., in the other Zuckerman books.

How odd. I've read this but have forgotten that this was also a novel about "passing". I read Nella Larsen's novellas last year and the topic of Afro-Americans with very light skin and Caucasian features as passing for whites is key.

I had never heard of Nella Larsen before. Thanks for the reference. I just read a little bit about the Novel "Passing" online. It is amazing that it was written in 1929. What did you think of Larsen's books?

I liked them very much, especially "Passing". The writing isn't too sophisticated but it's amazing to get an inside look. Both books are novellas really. I think they are important testimonies. Well worth exploring.

Thanks for the comment Sarah - I do not want to mislead here, I would say Roth tends not to be subtle in this book. His characters do a lot of philosophizing and even lecturing about the issues that he tackles. Nevertheless what they have to say is interesting.

Hi Miguel - I must admit that after having read eight Zuckerman books, in certain aspects, the character are wearing a little thin. Zuckerman has however evolved and changes overt time. Therefore I will say that I am glad that Roth has gone this far with these works.

If Harry Potter can go for seven books I am OK with Zuckerman having nine ☺.

I was just thinking that the difference between 'Bound' Roth and 'American Roth is that the former had a family to ruin. There was so much (hilarious) drama out of his family predicaments: he grows estranged from his father, mother and finally brother.

'American' Roth is just a narrator, it's not really about him. The novel could be, I think, in the third person and nothing would be missed.

My book group read The Human Stain a few years ago and it created quite the dialogue. It's amazing how Philip Roth can create such turmoil in our group. I personally am a huge fan and have read all of his books..but your comments are so inciteful that I wish I had them for our book group meeting!!

Roth does incite some controversies. I know that some have accused him of sexism, self indulgence, taking pot shots at real people, and who knows what else!

On the sexism issue. He does create quit a lot of unsympathetic female characters. However, in the Human Stain the character of Faunia Farley is so admirable, in a realistic way, that I think he makes up for it a bit.

It appears to me that this web site doesnt load up on a Motorola Droid. Are other folks getting the exact same issue? I enjoy this blog and dont want to have to skip it whenever Im away from my computer.